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Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Daily Log
Newegg has a deal on an AMD Ryzen 5 9600X CPU, Socket AM5 65W, with
Radeon graphics processor (6 cores, 12 threads), for $189.99. Specmark
multithread: 29984, single thread 4570.
According to Passmark, the best price performance (CPU Mark/$Price)
is the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 (19343/$73.00). AMD EPYC 7532 is second
(52232/$209.95; Amazon has that price, but Newegg does not come
close).
Amazon has a AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-core 32-thread Socket AM4 cpu
for $320.00 (45445); also a AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-core, 16-thread AM4
for $160.54.
Let's say for the sake of argument, we built Laura a computer\
around this CPU:
- AMD Ryzen 5 9600X (Zen 5) 6-Core 3.9GHz Socket AM5 65W Radeon
Graphics Processor, no cooler: $189.99; built-in graphics described
as "for non-gaming desktop use"; main caveat seems to be that AM5
motherboards are pricey
- Corsair iCue Link H100i RGB Liquid CPU Cooler: $89.99 ($259.98
in combo with CPU)
- Motherboards:
- ASUS TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi AMD5 B850 ATX motherboard, 14+2+1
80A stages, AI ready, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, 3x M.2, Wi-Fi 7, 2.5Gb LAN,
DisplayPort, HDMI, USB 10Gbps & 20 GBps Type-C, BIOS FlashBack:
$229.99
- ASUS TUF Gaming B650M-E WiFi AMD5 for Ryzen 7000: $139.99
- ASRock B650M Pro WiFi AM5 Micro ATX: $139.99
Monday, June 09, 2025
Music Week
Expanded blog post,
June archive
(in progress).
Tweet: Music Week: 32 albums, 4 A-list
Music: Current count 44332 [44300] rated (+32), 32 [23] unrated (+9).
New records reviewed this week:
- Yugen Blakrok: The Illusion of Being (2025, IOT): [sp]: B+(***)
- Car Seat Headrest: The Scholars (2025, Matador): [sp]: B+(**)
- Central Cee: Can't Rush Greatness (2025, CC4L/Columbia): [sp]: B+(**)
- Sarah Mary Chadwick: Take Me Out to a Bar/What Am I, Gatsby? (2025, Kill Rock Stars): [sp]: B
- The Convenience: Like Cartoon Vampires (2025, Winspear): [sp]: B+(**)
- Cosmic Ear: Traces (2025, We Jazz): [sp]: A-
- Amalie Dahl: Breaking/Building Habits (2024 [2025], SauaJazz): [bc]: A-
- Dickson & Familiar: All the Light of Our Sphere (2024 [2025], Sounds Familiar): [cd]: B+(**)
- DJ Shaun-D: From Bubbling to Dutch House (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): [sp]: B+(***)
- Rocio Giménez López/Franco Di Renzo/Luciano Ruggieri: La Forma Del Sueño (2023 [2025], Blue Art): [sp]: B+(***)
- K. Curtis Lyle/Jaap Blonk/Alex Cunningham/Damon Smith/Kevin Cheli: A Radio of the Body (2024, Balance Point Acoustics): [sp]: B+(***)
- Madre Vaca: Yukon (2025, Madre Vaca): [cd]: B+(***)
- Mean Mistreater: Do or Die (2025, Dying Victims Productions): [sp]: B+(*)
- Ela Minus: Día (2025, Domino): [sp]: B+(**)
- MonoNeon: You Had Your Chance - Bad Attitude (2025, Floki Studios): [bc]: B+(*)
- Joe Morris/Elliott Sharp: Realism (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): [cd]: A-
- Mourning [A] BLKstar: Flowers for the Living (2025, Don Giovanni): [sp]: B+(**)
- Nao: Jupiter (2025, Little Tokyo): [sp]: B+(***)
- The Onions: Return to Paradise (2025, Hitt): [bc]: C+
- Sverre Sæbo Quintet: If, However, You Have Not Lost Your Self Control (2025, SauaJazz): [bc]: B+(**)
- Samia: Bloodless (2025, Grand Jury): [sp]: B+(***)
- The Sharp Pins: Radio DDR (2025, K/Perennial Death): [sp]: B+(*)
- Deborah Silver/The Count Basie Orchestra: Basie Rocks! (2025, Green Hill): [cd]: B
- Um, Jennifer?: Um Comma Jennifer Question Mark (2025, Final Girl): [sp]: B+(**)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
- The Bitter Ends: The Bitter Ends (2022 [2025], Trouble in River City): [bc]: A-
- Mazinga: Chinese Democracy Manifest: Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (2024 [2025], Rubber Wolf?): [sp]: B+(***)
- Sweet Rebels: The Golden Era of Algerian Pop-Raï: The Ecstatic Electro Sound of Original Raï Cassettes 1986-1991 (1986-91 [2025], We Want Sounds): [bc]: B+(***)
Old music:
- Amalie Dahl/Henrik Sandstad Dalen/Jonar Jeppsson Søvik: Fairytales for Daydreamers (2022 [2023], Nice Things): [sp]: B+(*)
- Amalie Dahl: Memories (2023, Sonic Transmissions): [sp]: B+(*)
- Amalie Dahl/Jomar Jeppsson Søvik/Henrik Sandstad Dalen: Live in Europe (Nice Thing) **
- Andy Haas/David Grollman: Act of Love (2023, Resonant Music, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
- Les Rallizes Denudés: Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes ([2003], bootleg): [yt]: B+(***)
- Mazinga: Mazinga (1999, Reanimator): [bc]: B+(**)
- Deborah Silver: The Gold Standards (2016, Deborah Silver): [sp]: B+(*)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Benny Benack III: This Is the Life (Bandstand Presents) [06-27]
- Dave Burrell/Sam Woodyard: The Lost Session: Paris 1979 (NoBusiness) [05-02]
- Ran Blake/Claire Ritter: Eclipse Orange (2019, Zoning)
- Anita Donndorff: Thirsty Soul (Fresh Sound New Talent) [06-06]
- Noah Haidu: Standards III (Sunnyside) [06-06]
- Izumi Kimura & Gerry Hemingway: How the Dust Falls (Auricle) [05-20]
- Litorina Saxophone Quartet: Leaking Pipes (NoBusiness) [05-16]
- Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness) [05-02]
- Misha Mengelberg/Sabu Toyozumi: The Analects of Confucius (2000, NoBusiness) [05-02]
- Claire Ritter: Songs of Lumière (Zoning) [01-01]
- Jeff Walton: Pack Animals (none) [06-27]
- John Yao and His 17 Piece Instrument: Points in Time (See Tao) [07-11]
- Motoharu Yoshizawa/Kim Dae Hwan: Way of the Breeze (1993, NoBusiness) [05-02]
Friday, June 06, 2025
Daily Log
I posted
Loose Tabs
early enough on Wednesday that I was able to get a couple hours in
on what I had prioritized as my top house work project: sorting out
the lumber pile. Since we remodeled the kitchen in 2009, I have been
collecting scrap wood in the basement, filling up one 8-foot section
of wall, which previously had been set up with hanger boards (pieces
of 1x4 extending a foot from the wall, each braced with a diagonal
piece of 1x2, which would support a loose shelf, or a pile of wood
up to 8 feet long), with smaller pieces of scraps on shelves and in
boxes. My goal was to move all of that wood to the garage, opening
up fresh wall space I could use for temporary storage of CDs/books
as I try to figure out what to weed out.
The garage itself already has two lumber organizers, as well as
its own share of loose scrap. It makes sense to put the wood there,
because that's where the saws, the compressor, and most of the wood
tools are. On the south wall, I have a rack for stick lumber: rails
screwed into the studs, and steel shelf holders that hook into the
rails. I started by pulling everything out of there, to be sorted
and restacked, including a couple loose piles of 2x4 and 1x6, plus
similar boards pulled out of the basement. I had a big 2x12, so I
set if off the floor on some bricks, forming the bottom shelf, and
piled some more heavy lumber on top of it. In the end I wound up
with more 1x6 than I had space for, but I'll find uses for some of
them.
On the south wall, I have a cage I built, raised a couple inches
off the floor, that I can slide 4x8 sheets into. It's wider at the
top, so I can flip the sheets to get one in the middle, then pull
it out the end. The unit has a top board, and too much junk piled
on top of it. I need to take an inventory of what's in the cage, but
it includes 1-2 sheets of plywood, 2-3 sheets of MDF, and various
forms of thinner material (underlayment, masonite, paneling), and
maybe some drywall. In addition to full sheets, I keep large scrap
pieces there, plus I have more leaning against it on the side.
I recently bought a new plastic shelf unit (36 wide, 18 deep,
72 high), which I thought I might use for smaller pieces of scrap,
but I need to give that some further thought. I have no shortage
of clutter that needs to be shelved somehow.
I resumed work on Thursday, and cleared out the basement wall
area, and moved most of the bigger pieces upstairs. A couple large
pieces (8-foot long strips of plywood) I left in place as shelves,
which seems like the best possible use of them for now. That leaves
three rack rows, so what I'm thinking about doing there is taking
an 8-foot 1x6, attaching end pieces (lots of 1x6 scrap to use for
that), and some kind of minimal back: sit them on the rack, and
fill them up with loose CDs, which should suffice for everything
I have loose and unorganized elsewhere (especially in my office
area).
Most of the scrap is still in the basement, but off the wall,
most in partially sorted stacks. I need to start bringing them
up, but don't immediately have space in the garage -- although I
have untapped space in the shed, which may be the best place to
build some sort of organizer. I woke up this morning thinking of
ways I could build something, but need to take a look both at the
space and at the material I have to work with
there is the trash.
Wednesday, June 04, 2025
Loose Tabs
See
blog file.
Monday, June 02, 2025
Music Week
Expanded blog post,
June archive
(in progress).
Tweet: Music Week: 24 albums, 2 A-list
Music: Current count 44300 [44276) rated (+24), 23 [22] unrated (+1).
New records reviewed this week:
- Tunde Adebimpe: Thee Black Boltz (2025, Sub Pop): [sp]: B+(**)
- Aesop Rock: Black Hole Superette (2025, Rhymesayers): [sp]: B+(***)
- Jon Balke: Skrifum (2023 [2025], ECM): [sp]: B+(*)
- Bon Iver: Sable, Fable (2025, Jagjaguwar): [sp]: B+(*)
- Miley Cyrus: Something Beautiful (2025, MCEO/Columbia): [sp]: B+(**)
- Robert Forster: Strawberries (2025, Tapete): [sp]: B+(***)
- Joe Lovano: Homage (2023 [2025], ECM): [sp]: B+(**)
- The Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra: Mixed Bag (2025, Summit): [cd]: B+(**)
- Ava Mendoza: The Circular Train (2024, Palilalia): [bc]: B+(**)
- Larry Ochs/Joe Morris/Charles Downs: Every Day → All the Way (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): [cd]: A-
- Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet: HausLive 4 (2024 [2025], Hausu Mountain): [bc]: B+(**)
- PinkPantheress: Fancy That (2025, Warner, EP): [sp]: B+(*)
- Preservation Brass: For Fat Man (2025, Sub Pop): [sp]: B+(***)
- Marc Ribot: Map of a Blue City (2025, New West): [sp]: B+(*)
- Viagra Boys: Viagr Aboys (2025, Shrimptech/YEAR0001): [sp]: B+(***)
- Jim White/Marisa Anderson: Swallowtail (2022 [2024], Thrill Jockey): [sp]: B+(*)
- Yeule: Evangelic Girl Is a Gun (2025, Ninja Tune): [sp]: B+(**)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
- Nellie McKay: Gee Whiz: The Get Away From Me Demos (2003 [2025], Omnivore): [sp]: B+(***)
- Moskito: Idolar (2001 [2025], Awesome Tapes From Africa): [sp]: B+(***)
- Gerry Mulligan: Nocturne (1992 [2025], Red): [sp]: B+(**)
- John Surman: Flashpoints and Undercurrents (1969 [2025], Cuneiform): [dl]: B+(***)
- Ryan Truesdell: Shades of Sound: Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard Vol. 2 (2014, Outside In Music): [cd]: A-
Old music:
- Syran Mbenza: Sisika (1986, Syllart): [sp]: B+(***)
- Soft Works: Abracadabra in Osaka (2003 [2020], MoonJuine): [bc]: B+(***)
- Soft Works: Abracadabra (2002 [2023], MoonJune): [sp]: B+(***)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Alon Farber Hagiga: Dreams &vbar; Dream (Origin) [06-16]
- David Grollman/Andy Haas/Sabrina Salamone: SCRT (self-released)
- Greg Murphy: Snap Happy (Whaling City Sound) [06-06]
- Felipe Salles: Camera Obscura (Tapestry) [06-06]
- Julian Shore Trio: Sub Rosa (Chill Tone) [06-06]
Sunday, June 01, 2025
Daily Log
Last week, when we went to Thai Binh to pick up some Red Boat Fish
Sauce -- essential for the pad thai that I always assume I can make on
a moment's notice (need shrimp, in the freezer, and scallions, in the
refrigerator, plus a few staples that are easily kept in stock). While
I was in there, I picked up a few dinner fixings I can't source from
our usual Kroger (local name Dillons): a chunk of pork belly (thinking
twice-cooked pork), baby bok choy, Japanese eggplants, and on the way
out, I saw a roast duck.
I had just made panang duck curry, but I had a bunch of curry paste
left over, so I thought a reprisal would help finish the leftovers. Same
for the eggplants, as I had leftover peanut sauce. So I came away with
making for two fairly elaborate dinners, with no specific guest plans.
I did the twice-cooked pork on Thursday, and Janice and Tim came over
for a farewell before they drive off to Washington, where he has a
house, and the summers are more agreeable than in Kansas. (Winters
are more agreeable as well, but that's another story.) I reported on
that dinner on
Facebook and recounted in the
notebook. I added a subsequent
comment to that Facebook entry tonight:
I did a more modest reprisal of the May 16 Thai menu tonight, just as
it turned out for Laura & myself. When I bought the pork and eggplants
here, I also picked up a roast duck half, so I stripped the meat from
the carcass and used it along with the rest of the panang curry paste.
Also made another pad thai, and used up the leftover eggplant and peanut
sauce. Strawberry shortcake for dessert. That's probably all of the
cooking for a while.
I didn't take any more pictures. We had gotten into kind of a rut,
inviting the same people repeatedly, and they all turned out to be on
the move this week -- one all the way to Japan. Several last-minute
invites didn't pan out. Jerry Stewart has been incommunicado for quite
a while now, so while I left him an invite message, I wasn't surprised
when he didn't RSVP. I tried several others I hadn't seen in ages, but
they all had other plans. So when my abbreviated menu was ready at 5:30,
we went ahead and ate. I didn't even set the table. We went to a back
room and watched a movie:
State of Play (2009), which was based on a
UK series (2003, 6 episodes). Laura thinks we've seen the
series, but I doubt I have. Movie is necessarily streamlined, and
relocated in Washington DC, which makes the corporate scoundrels
all the more obvious. Not sure I buy the final plot twist, but the
movie was pretty good until then, and not exactly spoiled.
I spent a couple days writing a letter to Michael Tatum, which
included the following section, collecting my thinking about writing:
Night before I was finally working on planning documents, at least the
writing one. In a nutshell:
Primary focus will be on memoir. Having failed at writing
something straight through, my new plan is what I call the pile of
notes: a directory with many small files, some time-specific, some
topical (I have a few of these already, like one on cars, another on
card games), some historical, some relating to ideas, probably a bunch
of notes on various people, places, and things. Basically, raw
material that can be pieced together later. Could eventually be turned
into multiple essays, perhaps books.
Did Something Weird Happen in the 2024 Election?" Latest
iteration of the political book, but I'm finally able to shed my
biases toward happy endings and embrace Trump as a convoluted
revolutionary. There is precedent for this: an old, slim, and somewhat
deranged book called "The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience."
Approach is to outline then flesh out, working fast and completely off
the top of my head (maybe with the occasional search into the blog),
until I produce a 60-100 page rough draft that I can RFC. Then, if it
seems viable, I can consider turning it into book form, possibly with
a co-author. Rough outline is: intro section on methods and models
(how to think); a brief synopsis of American history up to Trump (I
originally thought from Reagan, then Nixon, now I see bits even
further back), possibly titled "Breaking Bad" (I'm leaning toward a
liberal sprinkling of pop culture references); three chapters on the
three Trump campaigns, and how they moved from mainstream
Republicanism to radical derangement; sandwiched between them will be
shorter interludes on how Republicans (Trump I admin) and Democrats
(Biden admin) attempt to cope with the crises their misguided politics
aggravate; two more necessarily short chapters to wrap up: the first
is what I see as a rational outcome, to establish the notion that such
a thing is conceivable; the second is what you get as various elements
of the rational solution fail. In other words, I don't want to end up
with the customary wish list, but to make the point that the wish list
is necessary, a point that people only seem to be capable of learning
the hard way. "Weird" is the pivotal term here, because the Democrats
thought they would win by disparaging it, while the Republicans did
win by embracing it. The only hope we have is for democrats to reclaim
the revolutionary spirit deeply embedded (along with a lot of other
detritus, for sure) in American history, including acceptance of our
own weirdness. (And I use lc for "democrats," as the party is just a
vehicle for the people to take over and drive, and I use democrats
instead of progressives because I want to ultimately uncouple the
notion of progress from democracy -- it had its moment, sure, but
we're almost where we want to be, and need to start thinking in terms
of soft landings.) This idea has come a long way since my original
1990s draft, when I was thinking in terms of a well-engineered static
utopia. It's become very dynamic (one could say dialectical). Seems to
me like there's some value here, if only one could bottle it up and
sell it.
Meanwhile, I'll keep writing short notes on records and (mostly
unread) books, and adding them to the pile. I really should sort these
into some more useful website order. I don't think the .odt files have
been updated since 2020, so that could be a start. It just occurs to
me that someone else could organize a GoFundMe (or something like
that) to do the actual grunt work, which is mostly what it is. I've
long held the idea that this could be turned into a website that other
people could take over and build on, so it's sort of up for grabs. I
know I made the mistake of holding on too long once before (with
ftwalk).
I have several ideas for white papers. The best one is probably
the scheme I call Representative Democracy, where legislature are
composed of representatives who hold proxies for the actual votes of
their constituents. Thus, for instance, if the Republican here in
Wichita got 130,000 votes, and the Democrat got 105,000 votes, both
would be elected, and each would have as many votes as they received
to cast on legislative matters. Then, for instance, 235,000 Wichitans
would have a representative in Congress, instead of just 130,000 being
represented (because, Lord knows, Ron Estes doesn't represent me in
any way, shape, or form). This rather elegantly solves a whole bunch
of problems that are endemic to winner-take-all or first-past-the-post
systems. In particular, it makes gerrymandering ineffective. It makes
money far less critical, and as such it makes it easier to provide
adequate public financing (without overly impinging on the "freedom of
speech" of the uber-rich). It introduces some marginal problems (there
probably should be some minimum for 3rd party/independent candidates,
as there will likely be more opportunities for them), but they're
relatively manageable. I also have a scheme for ending the Gaza
genocide which would also help end the Ukraine war, but let's not get
into that here. I could see eventually collecting these under the Paul
Goodman rubric, "Utopian Essays & Practical Proposals." A lot of these
involve open source software. Some are the residue of ancient utopian
thinking. (Before discovering Marx, I was into Edward Bellamy and
William Morris, although I must say that I always thought Thomas More
was a shit.) The problem here is that any of these could be a hopeless
time sink. I'd be aiming for rough sketches I could throw to the
wind.
I'm also likely to continue the occasional "loose tabs" posts,
although I worry that they'll turn into a horrible time sink. I run
across relevant items pretty much every day, and can find myself
losing many hours writing notes that go nowhere. Progress on the
aforementioned items depends on limiting my time here, and/or
recapturing it for other purposes. I obviously have a lot of backlog,
so I wonder if it might be possible to organize that into subject
threads.
A relative priority is a series of planning documents, which I
have at least started, but sort of stands alongside all of the above,
and lets me flex my engineering skills. Most relevant here, this gets
into the questions of tools and platforms. One document was nothing
more than shopping for a web server, which has since been followed by
one on how to use said server (although my websites have their own
doc). One, "subscriptions," deals with my social media accounts and
whatever else I'm following and/or using. Two ideas I'm seriously
considering: setting up a Substack, which I hope to call "Notes on
Everyday Life," which could go beyond being a push version of the blog
to some kind of journal of ideas -- whatever pops into my mind that's
worth a couple paragraphs. The other is that I kept the
notesoneverydaylife.com domain name, so I'm thinking about using it to
host a Mediawiki, which would be a "for public consumption" version of
my "pile of notes." In particular, it would indulge my tendency to
drop into footnotes, as every word in every piece is a potential link
to further exploration. It could also, to a large extent, be populated
with extracts from the notebook. It occurs to me I could distinguish
this from AI, and call it an OI [Organic Intelligence]
Knowledgebase. (Of course, in the end it will all be fodder for
AI.)
There is also a planning document on website work. The Jazz
Critics Poll needs a major overhaul. Christgau needs a minor
overhaul. My site is a mess. I'm thinking about writing a "philosophy
of the website" white paper, which could invite similar projects. It
might be fun to shift my focus from writing to programming, assuming I
can still do it.
I started the list above Saturday morning, and got up to item 6. At
that point, I broke off to go to the grocery store, and never got back
into the writing, which suggests that my work window is
narrowing. (Most of 6 and 7 came Sunday morning.) I haven't been able
to write anything at all after midnight for several months now, and my
evening hours are also trialing off, so I probably need to consider
that I have much less bandwidth these days than I used to. That's a
pretty sobering thought, especially given that much of what I wrote in
the 7 points seem like pretty good ideas, sensibly planned and
practical (although perhaps not in combination). I'll probably excerpt
this section and distribute it to some other people, to see if I get
any feedback.
Thursday, May 29, 2025
Daily Log
I made a small dinner tonight, for Janice and Tim. There's a couple
pictures and a report on
Facebook. The initial pic was of the prep ingredients, explained:
All prepped for dinner tonight. In just a few minutes, I'll reduce
this to twice-cooked pork (with the orange bell pepper and bamboo
shoots), stir-fried baby bok choy, grilled eggplant with peanut sauce,
and curried fried rice (with everything else, except for the chocolate
pecan pie, reserved for dessert, with ice cream).
I added another comment with a plate pic:
Well, here's what it looks like when plated. Pretty close to as good
as expected: pork sauce could have been reduced a bit more, with a bit
more kick (recipe called for hot bean sauce and sweet bean sauce; I
used ground bean and hoisin sauces, and a very small bit of chili
oil). Pie used a store-bought gluten-free graham cracker shell, which
made it super easy, and a bit saltier than I expected, but I loved it.
I added a later comment on the "raw materials":
Mostly not raw (that would be a very different picture, especially the
long purple eggplants), just the bell pepper, shallots, garlic,
ginger, scallions, although I also just chopped up other things that
were pre-processed (bamboo shoots, bacon, sausage, duck eggs,
tofu). The rice was cooked earlier, the eggplants grilled, the pork
and bok choy boiled, the egg fried, the peas blanched, the zucchini
stir-fried, the pie baked, the sauce mixed, but all of those were
discrete operations I could do one or two at a time, all prep for the
final stir-fries. Unusually, I had all of this done an hour before the
final cooking, which took less than 20 minutes.
Monday, May 26, 2025
Music Week
Expanded blog post,
May archive
(final).
Tweet: Music Week: 41 albums, 3 A-list
Music: Current count 44276 [44235) rated (+41), 22 [22] unrated (+0).
New records reviewed this week:
- Marshall Allen's Ghost Horizons: Live in Philadelphia (2022-23 [2025], Otherly Love/Ars Nova Workshop): [sp]: B+(***)
- Eric Bibb: In the Real World (2024, Stony Plain/True North): [sp]: B+(**)
- Bloodest Saxophone Featuring Crystal Thomas: Extreme Heat (2024, Dialtone): [sp]: B+(*)
- Chris Cain: Good Intentions Gone Bad (2024, Alligator): [sp]: B+(**)
- Chuck D: Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon (2025, Def Jam): [sp]: B+(*)
- Paul Dunmall Quartet: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow (2022 [2024], RogueArt): [cdr]: A-
- Early James: Medium Raw (2025, Easy Eye Sound): [sp]: B
- Bill Frisell/Andrew Cyrille/Kit Downes: Breaking the Shell (2022 [2024], Red Hook): [sp]: B+(*)
- Don Glori: Paper Can't Wrap Fire (2025, Mr Bongo): [sp]: B
- Larry Goldings: I Will (2023-24 [2025], Sam First): [sp]: B+(*)
- Homeboy Sandman & Brand the Builder: Manners (2025, self-released, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
- Ute Lemper: Pirate Jenny (2025, The Audiophile Society): [sp]: B+(*)
- Magnus Lindgren & John Beasley: The Butterfly Effect (2023 [2024], ACT Music): [sp]: B
- Taj Mahal & Keb' Mo': Room on the Porch (2025, Concord Jazz): [sp]: B+(***)
- Fergus McCreadie: Stream (2024, Edition): [sp]: B+(***)
- Nate Mercereau: Excellent Traveler (2024, Third Man): [sp]: B+(***)
- Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas: Totality (2025, Drag City): [sp]: B+(***)
- Nikara Presents . . . Black Wall Street: The Queen of Kings County (2022-23 [2024], Switch Hit): [sp]: B+(**)
- Bruno Parrinha/Carlos "Zingaro"/Fred Lonberg-Holm/João Madeira: Enleiro (2023 [2025], 4DaRecord): [cd]: B+(***)
- Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band: Honeysuckle (2025, Family Owned): [sp]: B+(**)
- Dan Phillips Trio: Array in Brown (2025, Lizard Breath): [sp]: B+(***)
- Ron Rieder: Día Precioso! (2025, Meson): [cd]: B+(*)
- Scheen Jazzorkester & Fredrik Ljungkvist: Framåt! (2023 [2025], Grong): [cd]: B+(***)
- Elijah Shiffer: City of Birds: Volume 2 (2024 [2025], self-released): [sp]: B+(**)
- Luke Stewart/Silt Rembrance Ensemble: The Order (2023 [2025], Cuneiform): [dl]: B+(***)
- Melinda Sullivan/Larry Goldings: Big Foot (2024, Colorfield): [sp]: B+(*)
- Sumac and Moor Mother: The Film (2025, Thrill Jockey): [sp]: A-
- Tune-Yards: Better Dreaming (2025, 4AD): [sp]: B+(*)
- Kali Uchis: Sincerely, (2025, Capitol): [sp]: B+(*)
- Nasheet Waits: New York Love Letter (Bitter Sweet) (2022-23 [2024], Giant Step Arts): [bc]: B+(***)
- Michael Waldrop: Native Son (2024 [2025], Origin): [cd]: B+(**)
- David Weiss Sextet: Auteur (2023 [2024], Origin): [sp]: B+(***)
- Ben Wendel: Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard (2022 [2024], Edition): [sp]: B+(**)
- Carolyn Wonderland: Truth Is (2025, Alligator): [sp]: B+(**)
- Carlos "Zingaro"/Flo Stoffner/Fred Lonberg-Holm/João Madeira: Na Parede (2023 [2025], 4DaRecord): [cd]: A-
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
- Ella Fitzgerald: The Moment of Truth: Ella at the Coliseum (1967 [2025], Verve): [sp]: B+(**)
- Masahiko Togashi: Session in Paris Vol. 1: Song of Soil (1979 [2025], We Want Sounds): [bc]: B+(**)
- Masahiko Togashi: Session in Paris Vol. 2: Colour of Dream (1979 [2025], We Want Sounds): [bc]: B+(**)
Old music:
- Nate Mercereau: Joy Techniques (Deluxe) (2019 [2020], How So): [bc]: B+(**)
- Sumac: The Healer (2024, Thrill Jockey): [sp]: B+(*)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Coco Chatru Quartet: Limbokolia (Trygger Music) [06-00]: LP
- The Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra: Mixed Bag (Summit) [05-23]
- Joe Morris/Elliott Sharp: Realism (ESP-Disk) [05-30]
- Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio: Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms) [06-20]
- Kathy Sanborn: Romance Language (Pacific Coast Jazz) [07-11]
- Deborah Silver/The Count Basie Orchestra: Basie Rocks! (Green Hill) [05-02]
Friday, May 23, 2025
Book Roundup
See
blog post.
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Daily Log
I started processing Robert Chrisgau's
Xgau Sez, and ran across a link to part one of a 1999 documentary
on him, which I watched:
Monday, May 19, 2025
Music Week
Expanded blog post,
May archive
(in progress).
Tweet: Music Week: 38 albums, 6 A-list
Music: Current count 44235 [44197) rated (+38), 22 [21] unrated (+1).
I published a
Loose Tabs
on May 14 (actually, late Tuesday night). I figured I should clear
the decks, as I would be cooking on Wednesday and Thursday. I had
shopped on Tuesday, and planned out a fairly grand Thai menu --
panang curry duck, pad thai, tom kha gai (soup) -- plus that Burmese
tea leaf salad I wasn't able to pull off for my birthday dinner.
I thought of pineapple upside down cake for dessert, with ice cream.
I also picked up some odds and ends, which turned into three side
dishes: cucumber salad, water chestnut salad, and grilled Japanese
eggplant with Thai peanut sauce. I wrote up lots of notes as I
worked. Rather than trying to recap them here, you can find them
in my
notebook.
The two days of cooking took my mind of writing, including
reviewing any records. That's reflected in the reduced rated
count this week, but not severely. I think we have a nice mix
of exceptional records this week, although I did fall down on
my promise to tweet about them on the fly. I don't feel like
I'm getting much value out of
Bluesky at the moment, although I'll concede that part of
the problem there is I'm not putting much work into it.
I have very little idea what I'll be doing this coming week.
I could try to wrap up a
books file, but the
amount of stuff worth mentioning is huge -- especially if you
include the propaganda and nonsense that one can only ridicule.
New records reviewed this week:
- Julien Baker & Torres: Send a Prayer My Way (2025, Matador): [sp]: B+(***)
- Jon Batiste: Beethoven Blues [Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1] (2024, Verve): [sp]: B+(*)
- Blondshell: If You Asked for a Picture (2025, Partisan): [sp]: B+(**)
- Buck 65: Keep Moving (2025, Handsmade): [bc]: A-
- Mackenzie Carpenter: Hey Country Queen (2025, Valory Music): [sp]: B+(*)
- Lucy Dacus: Forever Is a Feeling (2025, Geffen): [sp]: A-
- Erik Friedlander: Dirty Boxing (2024, Skipstone): [sp]: B+(**)
- Erik Friedlander: Floatinig City (2024, Skipstone): [sp]: B
- HiTech: Honeypaqq Vol. 1 (2025, Loma Vista): [bc]: B+(*)
- Jenny Hval: Iris Silver Mist (2025, 4AD): [sp]: B+(***)
- Salif Keita: So Kono (2025, No Format): [sp]: B+(**)
- Alex Koo: Blame It on My Chromosomes (2024 [2025], W.E.R.F.): [sp]: B+(*)
- Jinx Lennon: The Hate Agents Leer at the Last Isle of Hope (2025, Septic Tiger): [sp]: B+(***)
- Model/Actiz: Pirouette (2025, True Panther/Dirty Hit): [sp]: B+(**)
- Willie Nelson: Oh What a Beautiful World (2025, Legacy): [sp]: A-
- Enrico Pieranunzi/Marc Johnson/Joey Baron: Hindsight: Live at La Seine Musicale (2024, CAM Jazz): [sp]: B+(**)
- Simona Premazzi/Kyle Nasser Quartet: From What I Recall (2024 [2025], OA2): [cd]: B+(**)
- The Gary Smulyan and Frank Basile Quintet: Boss Baritones (2024, SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(**)
- Billy Woods: Golliwog (2025, Backwoodz Studioz): [sp]: A-
- Neil Young: Coastal: The Soundtrack (2023 [2025], Reprise): [sp]: B+(*)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
- James Moody: 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (2005 [2025], Origin): [cd]: A-
- James Moody: The Moody Story: James Moody Septet 1951-1955 (1951-55 [2025], Fresh Sound, 3CD): [sp]: B+(***)
- Pink Floyd: Pink Floyd at Pompeii MCMLXXII (1972 [2025], Columbia): [sp]: B+(*)
- Louis Stewart & Jim Hall: The Dublin Concert (1982 [2024], Livia): [bc]: B+(**)
- Sun Ra: Inside the Light World: Sun Ra Meets the OVC (1986 [2024], Strut): [sp]: B+(***)
- Horace Tapscott's Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra: Live at Widney High December 26th, 1971 (1971 [2025], The Village): [bc]: A-
- Hiroshi Yoshimura: Flora (1987 [2025], Temporal Drift): [sp]: B+(***)
Old music:
- Armonicord: Esprits De Sel (1977, L'Électrobande): [yt]: B+(***)
- The Buttress: Endofunctor (2023, self-released, EP): [sp]: B+(**)
- The Buttre$$: Stgructural Stabilization of a Historic Barn (2011, self-released, EP): [bc]: B
- James Moody: In the Beginning (1949 [2017], Inner City/Solid): [sp]: B+(**)
- James Moody: Moody's Mood for Blues (1954-55 [1994], Prestige/OJC): [sp]: B+(**)
- James Moody: At the Jazz Workshop (1961 [1998], Chess/GRP): [sp]: B+(**)
- James Moody: Homage (2003 [2004], Savoy Jazz): [sp]: B+(**)
- Torres: What an Enormous Room (2024, Merge): [sp]: B+(**)
- Joanna Wang: Modern Tragedy (2018, Sony): [sp]: B+(**)
- Carl Winther/Richard Andersson/Jeff "Tain" Watts: WAW! (2023 [2024], Hobby Horse): [sp]: B+(**)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Larry Ochs/Joe Morris/Charles Downs: Every Day → All the Way (ESP-Disk) [04-11]
- Bruno Parrinha/Carlos "Zingaro"/Fred Lonberg-Holm/João Madeira: Enleiro (4DaRecord) [04-25]
- Scheen Jazzorkester & Fredrik Ljungkvist: Framåt! (Grong) [04-01]
- Carlos "Zingaro"/Flo Stoffner/Fred Lonberg-Holm/João Madeira: Na Parede (4DaRecord) [04-25]
Friday, May 16, 2025
Daily Log
I cooked dinner for six (well, actually enough food for 10-12)
on Thursday: mostly Thai, plus a Burmese salad. I shopped on Tuesday,
and started cooking Wednesday afternoon. Gretchen Eick came over on
Thursday to help pull it all together. I've written quite a bit in
letters, so rather than try to recap here, I'll just quote myself.
From 5/14 (Wednesday):
Some background: Laura took me to a Thai restaurant in Brookline
for our first date, and we returned there regularly while in Boston. I
almost always ordered the panang curry duck, which they made with
chick peas and spinach. I tried making it once, about a decade ago,
for one of my birthday dinner bashes, with a dozen or more side
dishes, including most memorably a half pineapple stuffed with coconut
milk rice. When a friend was talking about making Thai curries, and
later invited us over for dinner, I started thinking on my own, and
was spurred on by the knowledge that I already had a duck in the
freezer. We're having those friends, plus two more, over tomorrow, so
this will be a dinner for six.
Centerpiece will be the panang curry duck. First step is to roast
the duck. I've found two recipes: one is very simple: rub some oil in
and season with salt and pepper; stuff the cavity with shallots,
scallions, lemongrass, and cilantro; roast at 350F (30 minutes per
pound, so 2.5-3 hours); use the broiler to crisp the skin. The other
is much more complicated, with a more complex stuffing, trussing, a
boiled sauce with sugar and red color ladled over the duck before
drying and roasting -- there's a 21-minute YouTube video going through
all of this. The latter reminds me of Chinese recipes: I've made
Peking Duck, also Szechuan Duck, and they're both multi-day affairs
for wonderful standalone dishes. But since I'm just intending to slice
the meat off and bury it in a peanut-based curry, I'm leaning toward
simple (although I may throw in some extras, both in the stuffing and
the spice rub; I don't care for the food color, but I may still have
some maltose). I should get that done this afternoon.
Once I have the roast duck, I'll carve off the meat and skin for
the curry, and possibly reserve some meat for a soup. What's left,
plus the neck and possibly giblets, can go into the stock pot, along
with the usual flavoring. I don't often serve soup, but the
opportunity is too obvious here to pass up. I figure I'll turn this
into a variant of tom kha gai, possibly with duck meat (since I forgot
to buy the traditional chicken), oyster mushrooms, and coconut
cream. I should get the stock done this evening.
I also figure I'll make the curry paste today. I'll use a can of
chick peas, and can steam the spinach, so making the finished curry
dish should be very easy tomorrow.
I'm inclined not to bother with rice this time, but just offer pad
thai, with shrimp and pork (I have a "country ham" shank that works
very nicely here). I usually skip the bean sprouts, which Laura
dislikes, but I bought a package, and thought I might stir fry them on
the side, so anyone who wants can mix them in. I make this all the
time: if someone shows up late and hungry, I always have the
ingredients on hand, and can turn this around in less than an
hour.
The other "main" dish will be Burmese tea leaf salad. I wanted to
do this last birthday dinner, but couldn't find the fermented tea
leaves in any of the six Asian groceries I checked, so I wound up
ordering it, and it came too late to include. So this one is
unfinished business. I also ordered a package of "crunchies" to add to
the salad (things like toasted yellow split peas), plus I have been
collecting similar things that might work (sunflower seeds, pumpkin
seeds, garlic chips). I'll mix up the dressing tonight, then assemble
the salad tomorrow. It's mostly shredded romaine, plus the toasts.
That strikes me as a fairly well-rounded menu, and easy to do once
it's properly organized. Which may leave me time to slip in some
little dishes on the side. I have a cucumber, so can make a salad of
that. I have four salted duck eggs, which could be turned into another
small salad. I have a bag of fresh water chestnuts, which I can
combine with a can of crab meat for another small salad. I have some
Japanese eggplant. Best thing I can do with them is to slice and grill
them, then top with a Chinese peanut sauce. I just bought a package of
frozen squid, thinking of a garlicky appetizer the local Thai
restaurant serves. Not sure what else I might find if I dig around. I
know I have soft shelled crabs in the freezer, but they're too
precious to get dropped in here as just another amuse bouche. Another
favorite from the local Thai is what they call "Y Wings," which are
fried chicken wings in a bright chili sauce. I should try my hand at
them some time, but I didn't shop for them, so they're off the
menu.
Dessert will be pineapple upside down cake, with vanilla ice
cream. A down home favorite, although the pineapple offers a tie
in. I'll make that tonight. I've been using fresh store-cut pineapple
of late, which works quite well, and makes this pretty easy.
That evening (by then, 5/15):
Status debrief on tomorrow's Thai dinner:
Duck is roasted. Came out spectacularly good. I sliced the meat
and skin off the bone. Didn't produce an awful lot, but should be
enough for the curry. I'm less certain about the soup. Probably should
have bought some chicken for that.
Panang curry paste is dubious. Recipe calls for pounding ten
ingredients to a paste one at a time, but I chop them as fine as
possible, then dump them all into the blender for further shredding
before using the big mortar and pestle. I couldn't get the latter to
work, so I wound up dumping the whole thing in the food
processor. Part of the problem was that there wasn't enough liquid for
tools like blender or food processor to work, and part was that some
of the ingredients (especially the lemongrass) were just too tough. I
tried compensating by adding peanut butter and/or peanut oil, since
for me the whole point of panang curry is peanuts, but it only got a
little better. And taste is extremely harsh. (I used 5 dried Chinese
chiles, minus seeds, which may be too much.) Two hopes and a B-plan:
many of the ingredients mellow out a bit when cooked (e.g., garlic);
the paste will be diluted in coconut milk, and I can experiment with
the ratios. The B-plan is that because everything that goes into the
curry is pre-cooked, I can hold it back until I'm satisfied with the
curry, or could even start a new one from scratch, without wasting the
duck, chick peas, etc.
Duck stock is done, but I'm not sure about it. I threw the
carcass, including the stuffing, into a pot with water, and added a
few spices (cloves, cardamom, peppercorns, etc.). Given the amount of
garlic, ginger, scallions, cilantro, etc., in the stuffing, I didn't
feel any need to augment that with fresh herbs. Came out less clear
than I expected, cloudy with a slight green tinge. I may just need to
adjust the seasoning.
Pineapple upside down cake is done. It didn't fall cleanly when
I turned it over, so I had some patching to do, but doesn't look too
bad, and the crumbs I sampled are excellent.
I sliced the Japanese eggplant, brushed it with sesame oil, and
griddled the slices. I usually do this with a Chinese peanut sauce,
but I may make a Thai peanut sauce instead (like you get with
sate).
That's decent enough progress for today.
Evening of 5/15:
Dinner done, served, mostly eaten. Gretchen came over about 4:45 to
help. It was complete, uncoordinated madness by that point. I'm not
good at directing other people, but she did a good job on everything I
assigned to her, so I probably owe her much of the success (or at
least that we were able to serve around 6:30. Dish notes:
Panang curry duck: I used 1/2 c of my paste to 2 cans of
coconut cream. It came out paler than expected, and also milder, with
some (but not many) hard bits left. I used 1 can of chick peas (skins
removed), 1 sweet potato, most of the duck. The curry thickened up
nice, and was pretty yummy.
Soup: Duck stock was darker than expected, and retained a ruddy
color even with 2 cans of coconut (1 milk, 1 cream). I found some
frozen chicken thighs, so used two of them for meat. I had dried
shiitake and fresh oyster mushrooms, as well as the various flavor
bits (galangal, lemongrass, lemon leaves, jalapeno rings), as well as
lime juice, tamarind paste, and fish sauce. Aside from the color, it
was very tasty.
Pad thai: I used dried shrimp as well as frozen, and threw in
some langostinos, as well as the country ham, and an extra egg. Big
scallions. Possibly the best I've ever made. I didn't, however, get
around to fixing the bean sprouts on the side.
Burmese tea leaf salad: I wound up pressed for time, so rather
than read carefully through the recipe, I mostly just used a cup or so
from the "fried beans" bag plus some extra garlic chips and cilantro
and a tomato. It was still pretty amazing.
Water chestnut salad: I couldn't find any crab worth using, so
grabbed a bag of frozen sea scallops. Thawed them out, put them in a
velvet marinade, then boiled them. The water chestnuts and scallops
look similar but have very different textures, so they work well
together. I also included some duck (recipe called for chicken,
shrimp, and crab). Sauce had citrus and tamarind. Also pretty
amazing.
Eggplant with peanut sauce: I went with a Thai peanut sauce,
made from curry paste (I used my panang) and coconut milk, with brown
sugar and fish sauce. Very good.
Cucumber salad: I made a mistake here subbing brown sugar for
white. Probably didn't hurt the taste, but would have looked better
clear.
Pineapple upside down cake with ice cream. Nothing to screw up
there.
I didn't get to the duck eggs, or the bean sprouts. Just as
well. Probably shouldn't have done the cucumber either. Kitchen was as
messy as I've ever seen it afterwards, but cleaned up pretty
quickly. Lots of leftovers: not enoug soup left to save, but I kept
the last four eggplant half-slices, and I have a lot of peanut sauce
left over.
Further reflections from 5/18:
I always regarded panang as a peanut curry, like massaman. The
"True Thai" recipe doesn't have peanuts, but mentions that sometimes
peanuts are added. I looked it up on the web, and was informed that
"panang is a hot curry; deal with it." But the Sawasdee dish I always
ordered was called "panang curry duck," and that was what I wanted, so
I dealt with it. I cut the recommended dried Chinese chilies down from
20 to 5, soaked and seeded. In retrospect, I could have used more:
while the paste was distinctly hot, the curry itself turned out to be
milder than necessary. This was probably because I wound up putting a
lot more peanut into it than even the most generous recipe called
for.
This was partly because I flubbed up the process. When I read the
"True Thai" recipe, I found that it specified starting with the garlic
and salt, and pounding that into a paste. Then add the other 8-10
ingredients one at a time, each time pounding into a paste. I wanted
to reduce the labor by getting the bits as small as possible in the
chopper, blender, food processor. The blender turned out to be
useless, as there wasn't enough bulk and fluid to move the ingredients
into the blades. I wound up using the small bowl of the food
processor, and even there I didn't have enough to properly process, so
I bulked up the paste by adding gobs of peanut butter and oil. Even
so, I never got all the hard bits dissolved. The lemongrass was by far
the worst problem. I'm tempted to just use lemon (and lime) zest in
the future.
The duck was pretty easy. I made a stuffing out of shallots,
scallion, garlic, cilantro, and lemongrass, with salt and black
pepper. I chopped all of that, and rubbed it in. The recipe used
bigger chunks, which would probably have worked just as well (and been
better for the stock later on). I rubbed a little oil on the skin,
plus salt and black pepper, then I mixed up a spice rub (if memory
serves, mild curry powder, paprika, cumin, five spice powder, more
pepper) and rubbed that around, but it was pretty light. I wrapped
foil around the wing tips, and tried to tie the cavity shut (didn't do
a very good job). I set the oven to 350F, put the duck on a rack in a
baking dish (back side up), and roasted it for 2.5 hours (4.5 pounds,
30 minutes per pound), turning it over midway. Once it was cooked
(thermometer measured 175-180F), I flicked the broiler on for 5-7
minutes, to crisp up the skin, but was careful not to overdo it.
The duck came out perfect, and was better at that point than later
in the curry. I cut the meat off, then took the carcass and put it in
a pot, covered with water. I left the stuffing in place, although if I
had it to do again I'd scoop it out and discard it, then add fresh
chunks of everything (but less cilantro). I also added some whole
spices I used in Chinese and Indian stocks (cloves, cardamom, anise,
cinnamon stick, peppercorns). I brought it to a boil, didn't really
have to skim it, and let it simmer for 2-3 hours.
With the duck cooked, I wanted everything else for the curry also
pre-cooked, so I could just focus on the curry itself, then add the
ingredients. So I used a can of cooked chick peas (which I
peeled). For the sweet potato, I wrapped one up in aluminum foil and
put it into the oven for an hour while the duck was roasting. Sawasdee
just used chick peas and spinach, but the sweet potato was suggested
by a pretty good
Nigella Lawson curry (also a big plug for peeling the chick
peas).
Later that day, I noticed that I already had a
panang curry recipe, from that birthday dinner long ago.
On 5/16, I posted a plate pic on
Facebook, with this explanation:
I took two days (+ shopping) out from the usual grind to cook some
Thai/Burmese food. I started by roasting a duck. I cut the meat off
for the panang duck curry top of plate, and made stock out of the
bones and stuffing (shallots, garlic, scallions, lemongrass, cilantro)
and used it to make tom kha gai (the dark stock overwhelmed the
coconut milk; with chicken, mushrooms, extra flavor). The pad thai is
in the middle of the plate, with shrimp, langostinos, and country
ham. Clockwise from right: grilled eggplant with Thai peanut sauce;
water chestnut salad with scallops and duck; Burmese tea leaf salad;
and a cucumber salad. Dessert was pineapple upside down cake, with ice
cream. Good enough I ate leftovers for lunch and dinner today, which I
almost never do. Most of our guests not only enjoyed but went out to
demonstrate today. I wasted most of the day trying to figure out how
to get Facebook to stop auto-refreshing (after one such refresh wiped
out photos from the demo I meant to at least like, maybe even comment
on).
The dinner was enticing enough that I ate very little but leftovers
through Sunday, when I finished the the duck and cake. (Still have a
bit of water chestnut and cucumber salads left.) I also added this
comment, with the panang curry link above:
By the way, I found (much too late) I had another panang curry duck
recipe written down, from my previous attempt. My file has a link to
still extant page which goes into more detail on technique. The advice
to build up the curry paste one ingredient at a time is sound, as is
the gradual addition of coconut milk when cooking. I'd add that once
you get the curry mix right, add the meat and other ingredients in
small batches to get whatever balance you want.
As I have leftover duck stock and some chicken thighs, I figured
I should make a second batch of soup, for Monday dinner. I don't
have the fresh mushrooms, but plenty of dried ones.
PS (5/19): I made the soup, but it wasn't great, with Laura
actively disliking it (too sweet? she asked). Both times I used
tamarind paste instead of tamarind-chile sauce, but I may have
overdone it this time -- soup came out much darker brownk almost
chocolate milk color. Also, I ran out of fish sauce. I tried using
shrimp paste, water, and some soy sauce, which also added to the
dark brown look. I thought my bowl was tasty enough, but after
Laura objected, I threw the rest out. Also got rid of the last
leftover salads, so the only thing left is some peanut sauce.
Some Facebook cleanup: dropped friend requests from Casey Michael
(?), Aram Bajakian, Devin Gray. Probably many more I should drop,
but that was just the top of the stack, who were in the way for
some reason. My intention is to only recognize as friends people
I know in person, although I've allowed a few dozen virtual friends
in who I've had direct email contact with -- in some cases, quite a
lot. I almost always ignore requests from musicians and publicists.
Shopping for plastic for air conditioner base repair. Several
candidates at BuyPlastic.com:
- HDPE sheet 5/8 x 6 x 48: $31.70
- HDPE sheet 1/4 x 24 x 48: $48.13
- HDPE sheet 1/4 x 12 x 48: $28.51
- HDPE sheet 1/4 x 6 x 48: $16.98 (would need 2 of these, plus one 5/8)
I ordered the 5/8 x 6 x 48 plus two 1/4 x 6 x 48 sheets, which came
to $88.41 (including $29.32 USPS shipping, which they warn may take up
to two weeks to deliver: ugh!). I hesitated when I saw the shipping,
but Amazon only seems to be offering bigger and more expensive sheets,
or smaller pieces, and other sources aren't any better.
I did a Google search for "what does a modern website look like,"
and was surprised to get quite a few answers. Most along the lines
of:
- Modern websites use strong typography, bold photography, micro
animations, selective minimalism, and more.
- You can tell a website is more modern by its consistency and
focus on basic geometry.
- Characterized with bold typography, simple layouts, and
unpolished elements, this trend pushes back against years of
polished, template-driven . . .
- The trend seems to be minimal and flat design without any
frills. Just cutting straight to the information.
Lots more advice available. Something to look into later.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
See
blog post.
Monday, May 12, 2025
Music Week
Expanded blog post,
May archive
(in progress).
Tweet: Music Week: 47 albums, 2 A-list
Music: Current count 44197 [44154) rated (+43), 21 [21] unrated (-0).
Another week, and not a hell of a lot to show for it, although
the rated count remains rather high -- boosted by wrapping up the
rest of the Strata-East reissues I hadn't prioritized
last week.
Since then, and with my demo queue mostly caught up, it's been a
struggle to find things to check out, although I now have a fairly
sizable checklist based on the DownBeat Critics Poll ballot, which
is sending me back to 2024 records, many of which never even placed
in my
2024 EOY Aggregate
(which among other things means they went unmentioned in the
2024 Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll).
I blew out a full two days of my time filling in the 73 categories
DownBeat asked me to vote for. As usual, I
took notes, this time being careful to copy down all of the
nominees they offered in all of the categories. To save time, I
dispensed with attempting any sort of running commentary -- as
I've often done in
previous years
(which start in 2003, well before they first invited me to vote) --
although I may return and add some later. As my method is to start
with last year's notes and edit them as I go, I'm aware that most
of what I dropped were lists of snubbed musicians (which in major
categories like alto sax and piano could be very long; but to do
them properly, as opposed to just reiterating last year's lists,
would take a lot of effort, something I was in no mood for).
I also have thoughts on the design and implementation of the
poll, but they would do little good. Some I've actually shared
with DownBeat, like splitting Hall of Fame into separate living
and dead sections, since they tend to be judged differently, and
the two-per-year process is too limiting -- cf. the Rock &
Roll Hall of Fame's by-the-dozen approach, which, easy to say, is
way too much. I also think the album categories should be calendar
aligned: that critics should have an extra 3 months to consider
the past year, and that readers should have 9 months, should not
just be deemed a feature but relished as a luxury. It takes time
to catch up, and more time for things to sink in, so why not take
advantage?
I have a million other complaints -- ok, more like a couple
hundred, but the mass is way too daunting to detail. The least
I can do is mention this line from the invite: "As you already
know, it's a LOOOONG ballot and will probably take a little less
than an hour to complete, but your input is truly valued." I've
never completed it in less than three hours, and that was only
by cribbing from past note sheets and voting for 90% of the same
people again. Even this year, where my revotes came close to 80%,
it took me 6-8 hours, spread out over three days. There are 73
categories, and each one offers 40-75 nominees (with new jazz
albums peaking at 136 -- only 22 on my A-lists, out of 110 for
2024, so 80% of
my top picks don't even get nominated).
Other than that, I managed to get a small amount of house work
done last week. I cleared out a pile of dead, decrepit, and/or
just disgusting electronics and hauled them off to recycle. I've
done some sweeping, some window cleaning, and some yard work.
I more-or-less fixed a porch rail that's been leaning alarmingly.
I found where an air conditioner plastic slab has broken, so I
need to figure out how to straighten it out and get it level.
The big task of finding proper places for all the CDs and books,
including weeding a few out, remains, as does the more confusing
job of sorting out the tools and hardware and putting them where
I can find them. The garage and basement need major cleaning.
I should go shopping for glasses. While my eyesight is improved,
short/medium distances are still troublesome. I need to work on my
planning, especially for writing, website development, and finding
a new car. Unclear how long the current one will even keep running.
It certainly doesn't inspire me to consider any sort of road trip.
I do have enough
material
for a Loose Tabs this week. Possibly
for a Books
post
as well: draft file has 16 main section books;
while in the past my standard has been 40, I've been wanting to
cut that down, especially as the sublists have grown, and I once
posited 20 as a good size. We're beginning to see the first
post-2024 election books, and there are a number of important
new books on Israel. I also have a big section on jazz books,
which I've rarely compiled before. And I still have a lot of
tabs open.
I also have a couple of
questions I hope to answer -- I
considered knocking them out today, but don't want to delay posting
any more than necessary. How much of this stuff I'll get done next
week is anyone's guess. The only project I'm actually enthusiastic
about is a dinner, which will give me a chance to combine the salad
I missed from the Burmese birthday dinner last October with a couple
of old Thai favorites (including one, panang curry duck, that I
haven't made since a birthday dinner over a decade ago).
Minor housekeeping note: as I've been listening to 2024 releases,
I've been adding them to the appropriate
2024 files, including
tracking,
jazz and
non-jazz, and even the
EOY aggregate (although
I'm making no active effort to collect more data for it). I've
basically given up on the idea of including previous-year albums
that were unknown to me in the new year lists (as I had done for
many years). Eventually, I think that all of the older annual
lists should be resynched to calendar year, although at this
stage the amount of work involved is hard to imagine doing.
I'll also note that my
Bluesky account has finally topped 100 followers. I got
nervous for a while when the count dropped from 100 to 99,
especially as that happened right after a non-music post
that no one seems to have understood.
New records reviewed this week:
- Albare: Eclecticity (2025, Alfi): [cd]: B+(*)
- Håkon Berre: Mirror Matter (2025, Barefoot): [sp]: B+(**)
- T Bone Burnett: The Other Side (2024, Verve Forecast): [sp]: B+(**)
- Cyrus Chestnut: Rhythm, Melody and Harmony (2024 [2025], HighNote): [sp]: B+(***)
- Yuval Cohen Quartet: Winter Poems (2023 [2025], ECM): [sp]: B+(**)
- George Colligan: You'll Hear It (2024, La Reserve): [sp]: B+(*)
- Alyn Cosker: Onta (2025, Calligram): [cd]: B+(*)
- The Coward Brothers: The Coward Brothers (2024, New West): [sp]: B+(*)
- James Davis' Beveled: Arc and Edge (2024 [2025], Calligram): [cd]: B+(***)
- DJ Dadaman & Moscow Dollar: Ka Gaza (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): [sp]: B+(***)
- Djrum: Under Tangled Silence (2025, Houndstooth): [sp]: B+(***)
- Maria Faust Sacrum Facere: Marches Rewound & Rewritten (2024 [2025], Stunt): [sp]: B+(**)
- Satoko Fujii This Is It!: Message (2024 [2025], Libra): [cd]: A-
- Galactic and Irma Thomas: Audience With the Queen (2025, Tchoup-Zilla): [sp]: B+(***)
- Hamell on Trial: Harp (for Harry) (2025, Saustex): [sp]: A-
- Joel Harrison: Guitar Talk Vol. 2: Classical Duos/Jazz Duos (2023 [2025], AGS, 2CD): [cd]: B+(*)
- HHY & the Kampala Unit: Turbo Meltdown (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): [sp]: B+(**)
- Hieroglyphic Being: Dance Music 4 Bad People (2025, Smalltown Supersound): [sp]: B+(***)
- Art Hirahara: Good Company (2023 [2024], Posi-Tone): [sp]: B+(*)
- Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis and Bryan Stevenson: Freedom, Justice, and Hope (2021 [2024], Blue Engine): [sp]: B+(**)
- Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis: The Music of Max Roach (2024, Blue Engine): [sp]: B+(*)
- KnCurrent: KnCurrent (2024 [2025], Deep Dish): [cd]: B+(***)
- Hedvig Mollestad Trio: Bees in the Bonnet (2024 [2025], Rune Grammofon): [sp]: B+(***)
- John Patitucci: Spirit Fall (2024 [2025], Edition): [sp]: B+(***)
- Pé: Æzæl: Eternity of Nonexistence (2025, Tokinogake): [sp]: B
- Sault: 10 (2025, Forever Living Originals): [sp]: B+(*)
- Joona Toivanen Trio: Gravity (2025, We Jazz): [sp]: B+(**)
- Gregory Uhlmann/Josh Johnson/Sam Wilkes: Uhlmann/Johnson/Wilkes (2023 [2025], International Anthem): [sp]: B+(**)
- Julia Úlehla and Dálava: Understories (2021 [2025], Pi): [cd]: B+(**)
- Jordan VanHemert: Survival of the Fittest (2024 [2025], Origin): [cd]: B+(**) [05-16]
- The War and Treaty: Plus One (2025, Mercury/UMG Nashville): [sp]: B-
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
- Borghesia: Clones (1984 [2025], Dark Entries): [bc]: B+(**)
- George Colligan: Live at the Jazz Standard (2014 [2025], Whirlwind): [sp]: B+(**)
- The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe: A Spirit Speaks (1974 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B
- Shamek Farrah: First Impressions (1974 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(***)
- Shamek Farrah & Sonelius Smith: The World of the Children (1976 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(**)
- Art Pepper: An Afternoon in Norway: The Kongsberg Concert (1980 [2025], Elemental Music): [sp]: B+(***)
- The Piano Choir: Handscapes (1972 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B
- The Piano Choir: Handscapes 2 (1974 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(*)
- Albert White: The Definitive Albert White ([2025], Music Maker): [sp]: B+(*)
Old music:
- Khan Jamal: Cool (1989 [2008], Porter): [sp]: B+(**)
Limited Sampling: Records I played parts of, but not enough
to grade: -- means no interest, - not bad but not a prospect,
+ some chance, ++ likely prospect.
- Isaiah Collier/William Hooker/William Parker: The Ancients (2023 [2025], Eremite): [bc]: ++
Grade (or other) changes:
- Marshall Allen: New Dawn (2024 [2025], Mexican Summer): [sp]: [was: B+(*)]: B+(***)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Albare: Eclecticity (Alfi) [05-02]
- Paul Dunmall Quartet: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow (RogueArt)
- Michika Fukumori: Eternity (Summit) [06-06]
- Ramon Lopez: 40 Springs in Paris (RogueArt) [05-25]
- Madre Vaca: Yukon (Madre Vaca) [05-26]
- Polyfillas: Rude Boys of England E.P. (self-released, EP)
- Ron Rieder: Día Precioso! (Mason) [05-15]
- Transcendence: Music of Pat Metheny (FMR) [07-01]
Friday, May 09, 2025
Daily Log
Michael Tatum became my 100th follower on
Bluesky. Then I dropped back down to 99, which bummed me out,
tempting me to quit the rat race. I see today I'm up to 101, but
notifications isn't telling me who joined. I took a look at Tatum's
following list, and decided to follow several: Cam Patterson,
Maura Johnston, Will Hermes, Greg Magarian, Jeff Melnick. Could
have picked a few more, but I tend to err on the side of caution.
Several more on his list I'm already following. Also several who
follow me but I haven't yet reciprocated.
Working on DownBeat Critics Poll. Last night just got to the
albums page. I'm copying down all of the nominees, but also
throwing away my previous years' side-comments. I've collected
the album nominees, but haven't checked them against my grades
yet (except for A-list, to decide how to vote). While I could
hardly care less about the role categories, the album categories
are useful checklists. My notes are
here.
Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Daily Log
I just noticed a new form of URL which looks possibly useful.
Evidently this can be used to search out a specific text string
within a page:
#:~:text= . . .
Perhaps this is just specific to Wikipedia, which is where this
particular example comes from.
Monday, May 05, 2025
Music Week
Expanded blog post,
May archive
(in progress).
Tweet: Music Week: 47 albums, 7 A-list
Music: Current count 44154 [44107) rated (+47), 21 [25] unrated (-4).
Another week, with little to show for it, other than a high rated
count, thanks to being able to use the
Strata-East reissue bonanza
as a checklist (in turn pointing me to some related albums). I also
followed up on social media mentions to dig up a few old albums I
had missed but by artists I've listened to much by (Don Cherry, Dudu
Pukwana). I also largely caught up with the release schedule of my
demo queue, but I have so little sense of the current date that I
may have slipped behind again.
I might also note that I while I rarely request review copies, I
did ask for the Murray album, and despite what I took to be a favorable
reply, never got it. But since I could stream it, I did. I also didn't
receive the Eskelin, nor have I heard the remaster, but I graded both
constituent albums A- when they came out, and relistening showed that
the grades held up, so I went ahead and wrote the best review I could.
One more note is that I got a nice letter from Jon Gold hoping I like
his album, a day or two after I plainly didn't like it. Seems like a
nice guy who probably deserves a more sympathetic ear than I could
muster at the time.
I published a fairly substantial
Loose Tabs
last week. I didn't update the file this time, but have some new
material in the
Tabs and
Books files. I finally got
around to updating the
books archive, clearing
the way for a new column.
I have an invite to vote in DownBeat's Critics Poll, deadline
May 12, so I'll probably try to knock that out. The invite promises
it will take less than an hour to fill out, but I've never done it
in less than 3-4 hours, and the only way I can do it in less than
6-8 is by shifting to a mode where I stop caring and just copy down
answers from previous years. It occurs to me that George Russell
may finally be eligible for their Hall of Fame Veterans Committee.
They have a weird system that makes it easier for someone who died
young to get into their Hall of Fame (e.g., Booker Little, Scott
LaFaro) than someone like Russell, whose career was long with many
remarkable aspects.
Carlos Lozada's The Washington Book is stimulating a lot of
thought on my part. One nice thing about it being an essay collection
is that when I run across a chapter I like, I can usually find a link
to the original that I can share. The biggest and most important piece
so far is
9/11 was a test. The books of the last two decades show how America
failed. I've read about half of these books, plus
twice as many more, but
reached this same conclusion before I read any. I'm not sure I can
find the citation, as I wasn't blogging at the time, but my initial
reaction was that it was a "wake up call," a challenge to reexamine
one's values and make remedies to get back into the right. But I
started with a pretty keen awareness that America wasn't always
right or honorable or even decent. While that much I learned since
growing up with the Vietnam War, what the last twenty-four years
have taught me is that Americans have not only "failed the test,"
they've become much worse people as a result.
New records reviewed this week:
- Kris Adams/Peter Perfido: Away (2021 [2025], Jazzbird): [cd]: B+(*)
- Anika: Abyss (2025, Sacred Bones): [sp]: B+(***)
- Gustavo Cortiñas: The Crisis Knows No Borders (2022 [2025], Desafio Candente): [sp]: B+(***)
- Alabaster DePlume: A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole (2024 [2025], International Anthem): [sp]: B+(**)
- Destroyer: Dan's Boogie (2025, Merge): [sp]: B+(**)
- Joe Fiedler Trio 2.0: Dragon Suite (2024 [2025], Multiphonics Music): [bc]: B+(***)
- Jon Gold: Chasing Echos (2025, Entropic): [cd]: C+
- The Haas Company Featuring Samuel Hällkvist: Vol. 3: Song for Mimi (2025, Psychiatric): [cd]: B+(*)
- Christoph Irniger Pilgrim: Human Intelligence Live (2023 [2025], Intakt): [sp]: B+(**)
- Melissa Kassel & Tom Zicarelli Group: Moments (2022 [2025], MKMusic): [cd]: B+(*)
- Kingdom Molongi: Kembo (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): [sp]: B-
- Marilyn Kleinberg: Let Your Heart Lead the Way (2022 [2025], Waking Up Music): [cd]: B+(***)
- Le Vice Anglais: Vas-y (2023-24 [2025], 4DaRecord): [cd]: B+(***)
- Mira Trio: Machinerie (2022-23 [2025], 4DaRecord): [cd]: B+(**)
- David Murray Quartet: Birdly Serenade (2025, Impulse!): [sp]: A-
- The Reddish Fetish With the Jersey City All Stars: Llegue (2025, F&F): [cd]: B+(***)
- Clay Wulbrecht: The Clockmaster (2024 [2025], Instru Dash Mental): [cd]: B+(*)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
- Charles Brackeen: Rhythm X (1968 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(***)
- The Brass Company: Colors (1974 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(***)
- Stanley Cowell: Musa: Ancestral Streams (1974 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(***)
- Stanley Cowell: Regeneration (1975 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B
- Stanley Cowell/Billy Harper/Reggie Workman/Billy Hart: Such Great Friends (1983 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: A-
- Ellery Eskelin: Trio New York About (or On) First Visit (2011-13 [2025], Ezz-Thetics): [dl]: A-
- Joe Fiedler's "Open Sesame": F . . . Is for Funny (2018-21 [2024], Multiphonics Music): [bc]: B+(**)
- Billy Harper: Capra Black (1973 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(**)
- John Hicks: Hells Bells (1975 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(***)
- John Hicks: Steadfast (1975 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(**)
- The New York Bass Violin Choir: The New York Bass Violin Choir (1969-75 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(**)
- Billy Parker's Fourth World: Freedom of Speech (1974 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(**)
- Cecil Payne: Zodiac (1972 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(***)
- Charlie Rouse: Two Is One (1974 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B
- Strata-East: The Legacy Begins (1968-75 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(***)
- Charles Tolliver With Gary Bartz/Herbie Hancock/Ron Carter/Joe Chambers: Right Now . . . and Then (1968 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: A-
- Charles Tolliver's Music Inc: Live at the Loosdrecht Jazz Festival (1972 [2025],, Strata-East): [sp]: B+(***)
- Charles Tolliver Music Inc: Compassion (1977 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: A-
- Charles Tolliver: Live in Berlin: At the Quasimodo (1988 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(***)
- Harold Vick: Don't Look Back (1974 [2025], Strata-East): [sp]: B+(**)
Old music:
- Don Cherry/Lennart Åberg/Bobo Stenson/Anders Jormin/ Anders Kjellberg/Okay Temiz: Dona Nostra (1993 [1994], ECM): [sp]: B+(***)
- Stanley Cowell: Brilliant Circles (1969 [1992], Black Lion): [sp]: B+(***)
- Stanley Cowell: It's Time (2011 [2012], SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(**)
- Joe Fiedler: Will Be Fire (2023, Multiphonics Music): [bc]: B+(**)
- John Hicks: After the Morning (1979, West): [sp]: B+(**)
- Cecil Payne: Patterns of Jazz (1956 [1959], Savoy): [yt]: B+(***)
- Cecil Payne: Cerupa (1993 [1995], Delmark): [sp]: B+(**)
- Dudk Pukwana and Zila: Life in Bracknell & Willisau (1983, Jika): [yt]: A-
- Harold Vick: Steppin' Out (1963 [1996], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(**)
Grade (or other) changes:
- New Orleans Party Classics (1955-91 [1992], Rhino): [cd]: [was: B+] A
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Alyn Cosker: Onta (Calligram) [05-02]
- James Davis' Beveled: Arc and Edge (Calligram) [05-02]
- Dickson & Familiar: All the Light of Our Sphere (Sounds Familiar) [05-31]
- Mark Masters Ensemble: Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance! (Capri) [06-06]
- Mark Masters Ensemble: Sam Rivers 100 (Capri) [06-09]
Friday, May 02, 2025
Daily Log
I saw a post on Bluesky about "proud of the garden I created from
nothing 6-8 years ago," which has "been 100% neglected (no watering,
pruning, etc.) for 3+ years." Advice: "plant drought-tolerant, location
suited flora." Now if only I knew what the fuck that was?
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Loose Tabs
See
blog post.
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Daily Log
Looked at Facebook today, and was struck by how many friends
from the "Contacts" list have died: Kathy Hull, Elsie Pyeatt,
Mary McDonough Harren, Jane Silver, Sonia Mayrath, James Lynch,
Bill Xcix Phillips. Of the 17 names in the list (algorithmically,
I presume, selected from my master list of 119 "friends"), 14
really are/were friends, one is a person I've met a couple times
(Phyllis Bennis), two others are people I've corresponded with
but never met (John Litweiler and Richard Cobeen, the latter as
best I recall also deceased). I've tried to keep the "friends"
definition pretty literal, although it looks like about 25-30%
of my 119 are people I've never met, but know only through email.
(I've ignored nearly all friend requests from musicians, and I
haven't tried to use my friends list as a way of promoting my
writing, so the reader/fans I added early on are exceptions and
not a general rule.) Scanning through my list of 119, I see more
dead people: David Schweitzer, Jack Williams, Fred Fleron, Alice
Powell, Elizabeth Fink. Sometimes I wonder whether I should trim
my "friends" list, but those would be painful cuts.
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